Looking for some advice please!

[CarrieW]

I love my husband dearly, and would never leave him because of his condition, but we are in trouble.  My husband has had problems with bipolar and anxiety since he was a teenager.  He has been hospitalized numerous times including 2 invoulantary commitments.  He is a nurse, and very, very intelligent, (he hold numerous degrees and a Masters), but he is unable to hold a full time job for more than a couple months. Would he possibly be able to get dissability, or medicaid due to his diagnosis.  He hasn't seen a doctor in years because of a lack of insurance. Has anyone ever been through something such as this? Thank-you.

[CarrieW]

Thank you very much for this information!

[ILADVOCATE]

Its a several step process. In order for him to obtain SSDI he has to be seeing a psychiatrist and on medication. However, he could qualify for Medicaid now which only has restrictions on income. In some states if there is a married couple, there is a form called the spousal refusal form which states that you cannot afford to pay for his medical care so it does not count your income towards the income limit for Medicaid. Also many states have the Medicaid Buy In for working people with disabilities where you can work as little as an hour a month and keep Medicaid if you are otherwise over the limit. For SSDI of course there are specific income and asset restrictions. Go to the website at ssa.gov. As per his working, if his psychiatrist stated that he could not keep a job due to his disability that would work in his favor but it would have to be backed up by evidence proving this. Do note with applications, a denial is usual and then one goes to a fair hearing where winning a case is more likely. I am very familiar with all this but for an in person consultation you should ask your local independent living center. There's one in every county of every state:
http://www.ilru.org/html/publications/directory/index.html